


If you are falling...

by yellowpretendingtobered



Series: (You Drive Me) Crazy [2]
Category: Arrow - Fandom
Genre: Depression, Feeling Suffocated, Minor Character Death, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-12 00:14:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellowpretendingtobered/pseuds/yellowpretendingtobered
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity has a mission go wrong and it brings up memories that she wishes could be erased. Oliver freaks out trying to make it better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If you are falling...

**Author's Note:**

> Jane Austen once said, “Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery”, I guess she meant my pen…or rather my keyboard. But we all feel like this sometimes, I know I do, so it only stands to reason that Felicity would too. Sorry if it brings you down.   
> Any and all mistakes are mine, I’m sorry for any that you see.

Tears. There is nothing magical about them except their power to take away the pain and sorrow felt by anyone who rids themselves of them. Crying used to be a way to dispel the angry truth of the world from her shoulders, but not his time. This time was different.

Lights were off throughout the apartment setting a dark surrounding for the chasm of depression that she now found herself hopelessly stuck in. Her normally bright and sunny paint tones splashed across the various rooms of her apartment were shrouded in varying tones of grey as a result of the ever present darkness. The kitchen was silent, not even the hum of the refrigerator keeping itself cool could be heard, nor did the ticking of the giant math clock she’d receive as a gift one year that hung in the living room. Curled in the far corner of her bedroom, the darkest one of them all, trying to dissolve into the wall; never to be seen again. Her hair clung to her back in wet ringlets spanning across her shoulders. The fun vibrant clothes usually adorning her small physique were replaced with black sweatpants and a, too-large, grey sweatshirt hung loosely around her small body. Anything more fitting had felt like it was threatening to consume her until she was struggling on the floor panic lacing her entire form.

Over an hour passed by in this fashion. Felicity curled in the corner with her body shaking somewhat violently from the wailing sobs that she thought may be physically tearing forth from her body. No good. I’m just not strong enough. There’s no need for me. Everything is my fault. I’ll always disappoint them. If she thought that it was suffocating before the darkness descended upon her in that moment like it never had before. The apartment was too small. She couldn’t breathe; couldn’t catch her breath with the panic setting up shop in her chest, sitting sentry to make sure that she never felt good again.

Frantically she jumped to her feet. Dizziness waved over her being and she jutted out an arm to grab at her desk, but it fell flat. Her eye sight was blurry from the dizziness coupled with her rapid, shallow breathing causing her to overestimate where the desk was. After falling to her knees with a heavy thump she found purchase on the bed and hauled her almost limp body from the floor. Slipping on some flats to her previously bare feet she grabbed her bag and keys then ran from the dismal apartment as if it had a knife poised to stab at her back.

The elevator had been broken ever since she moved into the apartment. She was told that it would be up and running within the next six months, but those six months had come and go, with her still using the stairs. Walking down fifteen flights of stairs in her condition wasn’t advisable, but there wasn’t another choice. As she reached the door leading to freedom from this confining space her breath had become more regular with only short bursts of uneven grasps of air being pulled down into her oxygen starved body.

She took a minute to catch her breath. It was the same minute that it took to get to her car. This city was suffocating her with its confined limitations. She wanted to get away. She NEEDED to get away.

 

* * *

Sitting in the foundry alone wasn’t doing much for him in terms of calming him down. His arm was aching from where the bullet had struck him. Digg had harvested the bullet from his chest where it had embedded inside of him and took root, like a carrot penetrating the earth, only visible by the slight penetration it allowed to show through. He had gained this scar from protecting Felicity from the same bullet penetrating his chest. The barrel of the gun had been aimed at her back as she’d been fleeing the scene as he told her to get to safety. Maybe it was his imagination but he thought that it was aimed right where her heart had been. His entire world had stopped in that second as he saw their target’s muscle begin to pull the trigger. Without a second thought he had jumped in front of the bullet, not caring for a second if he was hit. The world needed Felicity in it, he was disposable.

They had managed to get to safety working together, because, well he did have a bullet putting pressure and heat searing into his chest. But not before Felicity saw him jump in front of a bullet for her. She had been silently livid in the car. After they got back to the foundry and Digg had been successful getting the bullet with her name on it from Oliver’s chest, she left without a word. The tension radiating off of her had him on pause. He tried to call out to her, but she never turned around and he was in no place to chase after her, even though he desperately wanted to.

“You need to give her some time, she’s probably feeling guilty for your injury” he’d said while still wrapping the bandage tightly around Oliver’s back.  
“I’d take a million bullets, Digg. And I won’t apologize for that” he groaned from the pressure of the bandage pressing against his very recent wound.

That was two hours ago. He was getting worried about her. He went by her apartment but the lights were all off and there were no sounds of life coming from inside. So he’d gone back to the foundry and called her cell phone. He had a story ready for her about needing her for something Arrow related, but when she answered the phone his mind went blank.

She was crying. He could hear the sobs and the uneven breaths being drawn in. “Felicity, what’s wrong? Where are you?”  
“I’m fine, Oliver. I’m just busy so I have to go now”  
“No Felcity, don’t hang up. Tell me where you are and I’ll come get you”  
“I’m taking tomorrow off. I’ll see you Monday” the click that followed was deafening. It echoed through his mind for several minutes. He quickly moved to the computers and tracked her phone. Thankfully Digg wasn’t here to yell at him or lecture him about the deeper meaning to his frantic movements around the lair and the whole night in general.

There you are!

* * *

**_[if you were falling, then i would catch you_ **

**_you need a light, i'd find a match_ **

****

**_cuz i love the way you say good morning_ **

**_and you take me the way i am_ **

****

**_if you are chilly, here take my sweater_ **

**_your head is aching; i'll make it better_ **

****

**_cuz i love the way you call me baby_ **

**_and you take me the way i am_ **

****

**_i'd buy you rogaine when you start losing all your hair_ **

**_sew on patches to all you tear_ **

****

**_cuz i love you more than i could ever promise_ **

**_and you take me the way i am_ **

**_you take me the way i am_ **

**_you take me the way i am]_ **

Ingrid Michaelson was playing on the stereo through the CD that she’d left in the player earlier. She always managed to calm her down and help her focus. She’d listened to her since she began her career and this song had been playing that day, all those years ago. A beautifully sad reminder of their love for her. No, she couldn’t think about all of that if she wanted any semblance of a recovery, yet, they kept drifting to her mind.

 

* * *

It felt like so long ago sometimes that she wondered if it was even real. It felt like just a dream tinged with faint glimpses of reality. A hospital, hoplessness, crude nurses, tears that were permanently afixed to her eyes... No it was reality. Her reality. And this song playing was a beautiful yet sorrowful reminder of the love from her parents, long gone now.   
Her mother had fought a battle with brain cancer. One that she had to fight alone. One that she ultimately lost. Tracy Smoak was always complaining of pains and aches, a real hypocondriac. It wasn't uncommon to arrive home hearing the telltale "I'm dying!". Today, Felicity assumed was no different, but it had been, because as much as her mother complained she never went to the ER; she was terrified of hospitals. It was an old family horror story on her side of the family that once you check in, you never check out. She had really taken that to heart. However today she was complaining worse than usual and had Felicity bring her to the hospital.

After a three hour ER wait they were finally seen and some tests were done. Another wait commenced before the results were brought to them. By this point it was late in the day and Felicity was alone with her mother while her father was away at a conference. It was a big science convention that he'd been eagerly waiting for. She definitly took after her father in the sense that she was a nerd just like him.

When a nurse finally came back with the results of her tests she pushed right past Felicity with a large white medical cart (The same kind that they have in the foundry. The first day that she'd seen Digg patch up Oliver using the cart she had to turn her head away to hide a few silent tears that escaped at the memory). The nurse never paused in her stride. Descending upon them like unsuspecting victims of a tornado appearing from thin air. Rumaging around in her cart she found the supplies needed to draw blood from her mother without telling them what was happening. Midway through drawing blood she spoke, although never looking up fron her task, and told them that the doctor found a tumerous mass in her brain that they'll need to run more tests to determine the severity of the situation, but she'll definitly be staying overnight. 

The crass, blunt manner of her words were like a sharp slap to Felicity's face. Tumerous mass? What the hell?! Before either mother or daughter could say anything, Mrs. Smoak was loaded onto a wheelchair and pushed away toward a more permanent location.   
Her mother went from in-patient to out-patient back to in-patient and then finally checked into a nursing home all the way across the state. The process took about a year before the fateful day that shattered her world. 

Her father had told her to sleep in. Felicity cut down on her school hours, going only on the weekends and nights. She was also helping to take care of the family farm by keeping on top of the bills and the everyday activities that it took to run it.  Keeping up with course work, the farm, helping to care for her mother and being strong for her father (who'd taken to hitting the bottle) were all responsibilities that she felt her due to take on. Exhaustion didn't begin to cover how bone tired Felicity was physically as well as mentally. Seeing this her father let her sleep in choosing to go visit his wife alone.  Jerry Smoak was a southern genteman through and through. He was a loving husband and devoted father. His one weekness, like many, was the need to drink himself into oblivion on occassion when things were roughest. He was a geologist turned agriculturist. The farm had been his life since he was young. Three generations of Smoak men had owned that farm and he accepted that reaponsibility with love and care to his land. 

When his wife got sick he had begun to pull away from everything including the farm work. He saw the strain that everything was taking on his daughter but she bore the responsibility the way that he had, earlier in life. Taking everything in stride and completing all of her work with loving care. Although he was sympathetic to the position that he was placing her in, he was helpless to stop it. He was a selfish man drinking his way through the pain. This morning though, he pulled himself up by his bootstraps deciding that he would do the right thing by Felicity. He would let her have the day off from everything to rest. So he left a note explaining as much on her nightstand before unplugging her alarm clock. 

While visiting his wife in the nursing home she had a heart attack. Although the nurses did the best that they could; that was the last time that he would see his wife alive. Before heading home to tell his daughter the news that would surely break her heart he stopped at a drug store on the corner and purchased a bottle of Jack Daniels. Which he conveniently drank on the way home. He sat outside the house in his truck for close to an hour. Felicity remembered hearing the truck pull into the driveway at the house. She sat in the living room waiting for him to come in. But he never did. And when she glanced out the window she saw him peel away from their home. That was the last time that she would see her father alive.   
Later that night, she called to check on her mother the way that she did everynight before she went to bed. Only that night she wasn't met with the sweet voice of her mother, but rather the gruff voice of a male nurse that she'd never met before. Nurse Nick Collins informed her, regretfully, that her mother had passed away earlier that day. As he spoke she could feel her heart break within her chest. A very real physical pain that surrounded her entire form in a vice like grip. She tried to call her father's cell understanding why he hadn't come inside. He was too stricken with his grief to confront her just then. But now she needed him. She needed her father to hug her and grieve with her. To make her feel safe and not so broken. Every call went to voicemail, though. She tried every half hour hoping that this time he'd answer. After five hours at three in the morning she finally got through. However the voice that greeted her wasn't the deep familiar voice of her father, but rather the burly unfamiliar voice of Officer Swarek. He informed her that her father's car had been found on a patch of road just outside of Starling City. The road opened up to a lake that kids used to go swimming in, in the summer. Her father had apparently attempted to go swimming but in his inebriated state had only succeeded in drowning himself. He was dead when two other officers had driven by on patrol. He let her know that she could come pick up her father's things at the precinct or he could send some officers to her house in the morning to deliver them. (Officers Shaw and McNally had been the ones to find him as well as offered to bring her father's things to her) She was barely able to accept the latter offer. They then hung up and she was left alone. In one fail swoop she had become an orphin. Both of her parents had been taken from her and she had no other close family to speak of.

Soon after she sold the family farm to her neighbors, Dov and Gail Epstein, who had been looking to expand their property to accomidate their growing family. She negotiated the terms of agreement so that they were given all but five acres in the very back of the property reserved for her. One day she hoped to return when it wasn't so painful.

In an attempt to comfort and relax herself she had played this cd when she placed both of those earth shattering phone calls. Now looking back she was sad and glad that she had tied those memories to such a meaningful song.

That's where she was now. Seven years ago on this day, in this exact spot, just outside Starling City with a breathtaking view of a secluded lake, Felicity Smoak lost the last half of the loving pair that called her daughter.

 

* * *

Looking down once more to make sure that he was in the right place, Oliver begrudgingly looked up again. He had just pulled his bike over to the side of the road to check his phone, which was currently leading him closer and closer to Felicity. She hadn't moved for a long time and he was thankful for that. But now standing at this hidden path through a thicm archway of trees had him second guessing if the tracker had a glitch in it and whether he was going the right way or not. After a few minutes of hesitation due to contemplation, Oliver decided that there was only one way to find out if he was headed in the right direction. He hopped back onto his bike and followed the path into the trees. Eventually the path lead into a small clearing beside an equally small lake. And parked in front of him was the same red mini cooper that he'd climbed into that first day that he let Felicity see the man behind the green face paint. He was quick to reapply said paint once he was well again, but she'd wormed her way under his skin and he can't say he isn't happy that she did.

He glanced around the space for a few seconds taking in all of his new surroundings. How it seemed like someone had been taking care of the space, surely it must belong to someone if the cut grass and trimmed weeds were anything to go by. Toward the side of the grass closest to the lake there was a freshly planted bed of daisies. He wondered who owned this place, though its not hard to see why they'd purchased it. More importantly he wondered how she knew of this place and why she was there now.

Taking a tentitive step closer to the woman sprawled on the grass with her knee ls bent underneighth herself, elbows resting on top of her knees, and head cradled in her resring hand. She was still. As still as the air around him seemed to become when he took in the sight of her state. Her hair was damp and slightly everywhere in a subdued Cruella DeVille kind of way. Her sweater was too large for her by three sizes and appeared to be a mens pullover. In one swift move she pulled /her legs in front of herself, completely stretched out, all the while wrapping her arms around her middle. Then she started to sway with what he could only assume were tears. As he neared his friend he was alarmed that ahe hadn't given any indication that she noticed him enter the clearing. Slowly he sat down next to her and spoke her name. All that this earned him was a sudden gasp and a backwards push as she launched herself at him to attack. A second later she realized that it was Oliver that she was staring at through tear soaked eyes. 

"Oliver," she began as she wiped tears from her eyes, trying, in vain, to compose herself. " what are you doing here?"

"I tracked your phone. I was worried about you" he replied sheepishly. He had so many things to ask her, but willed himself to remain the silent support that she obviously needs right now. Though the reason behind her sudden need is a blazing mystery in his mind.

" I told you Im fine. I just need some time to myself"

"I promise I wont bother you. But I'm not leaving you either. I'll just sit here next to you,  okay?" He actually held his breath worried that she would say no. Because then they'd have a fight for sure. There was no way that he could leave her now. Not here amd not like this. He doesn't hesitate to put his arm around her, effectually pulling her closer.

"Okay" she whispers leaning into his side. His heart actually hurts a little at that. In this moment the fire cracker he's come to know seems so broken and hurt. He can't help if he doesn't know what happened. 

For a while they just sit like that. Both deep in thought. Then Felicity spoke.

"A while ago my mom was diagnosed with cancer. I worked so hard for her. I had to watch her slowly fade away and it felt like I was dying too...after a while she lost her will to fight. I wish that I could say she was a fighter, but she gave up towards the end, not that she got much encouragment from her doctors...at one point she talked of killing herself and it scared me so much that I had her put on suicide watch. I didn't visit her the day that she passed. My dad told me not to. He went instead. He'd been drinking more lately and wanted to make it up to me. Let me play hooky from everything. So I did. That night I called to say goodnight, like always, but the nurse on duty, Nick Collins, told me that she'd passed on...I called my father repeatedly. I had no idea where he'd gone and I was so hurt, but he never answered. Sam answered instead. Officer Sam Swarek was the one who told me that my Dad had passed on. He got drunk after he left the hospital, came here to think and drowned in the lake. Seven years ago today the only two people that I'd give my life for died. Then I found a new family. You and Digg. I'd gladly give my life for either of you. But tonight of all nights you jumped in front of a bullet for me and I almost lost you. My new family. Do you have any idea how terrible this day is for me to begin with and then for you to blatently jump in front of me...you could've died! Then where would any of us be. There wouldn't be any more protector for the innocent. The work you do is so important and...I'm not worth it..."

During the whole of Felicity's speech Oliver kept quiet at her side. He didn't interupt at any moment even though he wanted to know why she knew Officer Swarek so well that she refered to him as Sam. But, when she said that his life was more important than hers he couldn’t keep quiet. He shifted them so that she was forced to look him in the eyes. “I never want to hear anything like that, ever again. Understand? I told Dig and I’ll tell you, I would take a million bullets if it meant keeping anyone that I cared about safe” Then they shifted back and sat together in silence for the rest of the night.

When Felicity Awoke the next morning she was wrapped in Oliver’s jacket and arms on the grassy bank. Maybe things would get better for her. She just needed a symbol for hope…

**Author's Note:**

> My other character references were from Rookie Blue. I love them all! Hope it didn't make you feel too bad. This was actually based on something that actually happened to me. It wasn't this dramatic, but it did take its toll, so to anyone else who has afflictions of the same nature: we all just need to have hope that it'll all get better. In the words of Hot Hot Heat, “Don’t worry now, don’t worry because it’ll all turn around”. (I know its not the same context, but I’m listening to it right now, so…)  
> I also wrote this way before last weeks episode when she opened up, but I never got a chance to post it.


End file.
